RAILWAY HEROINE.

Waipukurau Press, Issue 306, 10 September 1908, Page 2

RAILWAY HEROINE.

How a woman gave her life to save from censure her father, an overworked old man on the Great Eastern railway, was told at an inquest recently. The fatality occurred at the level crossing at Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge, which is in charge of an old man aged 71, named West, with whom resided a daughter aged 31. The father after a train had gone through opened the gates for the road traffic and then went to his garden. He was astonished a few minutes later to heat the rumbling of an approaching train. He went to close the gates, but saw that his daughter, who was' aware of the trouble that would ensue to her father if the gates were wrecked, was doing the work. She had closed one gate and had the other nearly shut, when an engine dashed up, cauhgt her, and threw her on the down road. — The aged father went to her assistance, but she was seriously injured and died within an hour. The-father states that for the last three weeks he had been called at four o’clock in the morning and had been on duty until 10.30 at night. The old man, in heartbroken tones, told the coroner that there was no ring whatever of his electric bell to signal the approach of 'the engines. The bell had only clicked faintly before when trains had approached. The jury, in returning a verdict of “ Accidental death,” added a rider calling the attention of the directors of -the railway to the public danger arising from such long hours as West had to work.